Why I'm Trading Keynotes for Coffee Cups: A Story of Community

For many years, I've harbored a dream that might surprise you. After my speaker/author/CEO career winds down, I plan to open a coffee shop. Not a sleek, modern cafe with cold brew on tap, but a true neighborhood coffee shop—the kind with slightly worn-out arm chairs, where conversations bloom between strangers and the barista knows your order before you speak. Maybe we don’t even call them a barista. That kind of place.?

This isn't just about loving coffee (though I do) or enjoying hospitality (which I certainly do). It's about something deeper that I've only recently begun to understand.?

My romance with coffee shops began at the Urth Cafe, a bohemian haven that has become a staple of the Los Angeles latte scene, where I wrote my first story so many years ago. (I’ve since re-read it, and the over-the-top language of my 24-year-old writer self was positively cringeworthy, but the heart was there.) This place became my spot, always grabbing the same table looking at the door so that I could watch the parade.?

Since then, coffee shops have been my offices, my thinking spaces, my refuges. I've lived in over a dozen countries for varied lengths of time and the first thing I look for wherever I land is my coffee shop. But it wasn't until recently that I recognized why this kind of place and seemingly simple vision for my future has such a powerful hold on me.?

The neighborhood coffee shop, I've realized, is more than a business—it's a cultural institution that represents nearly everything I hold dear about human society. It's one of the last remaining places of casual community in our increasingly disconnected world.?

You may know the classic model of three vital spaces in a healthy community: home (first place), work (second place), and gathering spaces (third places). Coffee shops might be the most perfect third places we have left. They are fluid and improvisational. They are usually physically tight to prompt closeness and eye contact. They are filled with the most glorious kind of white noise – people sharing with each other.?

Why do these matter so much? An old therapist once shared something profound with me. She said that when we move or change jobs, we often focus on mourning the loss of close friendships or core institutions such as our children’s school or our place of worship. But what actually creates much of the fabric of a rich life are the "incidental friendships"—the daily hellos with the dry cleaner, the postal worker, or the fellow coffee shop goer who knows your name. These small moments of recognition and belonging shape our sense of community in ways we rarely acknowledge.?

Think about your local coffee shop (if you're lucky enough to have one that fits this description). It's likely one of the last places in your life where strangers still strike up conversations, where different social classes and generations merge and where time moves at a more human pace. Oh and of course, there are the muffins, dogs, music, and the way the morning light filters through the steam of your Americano. Its heaven to me, especially in the earliest hours.?

This is why I believe the humble coffee shop isn't just a business opportunity—it's a form of social activism. Each independent cafe that survives is preserving a vital piece of our human infrastructure: the space for serendipitous connection.?

When I imagine my future coffee shop, I see it as a tiny rebellion against our culture of isolation. A place where:?

• Regulars develop their own natural interpersonal choreography??

• Conversations meander without agenda?

• Community notices still paper the bulletin board?

• The elderly gentleman in the corner reads a novel for hours?

• Students find their first taste of independent work life?

• Writers like my younger self find their voice?

But here's the thing—we don't have to wait for retirement to create these spaces in our lives. We can seek them out, support them, and most importantly, use them as they're meant to be used. Become a regular somewhere. Learn names and be known by others.?

So, yes, someday I'll open that coffee shop. Until then, I'll keep championing these vital third places—these last bastions of unstructured human connection. Because in a world increasingly divided by screens and algorithms, we need these analog spaces of belonging more than ever.?

When was the last time you allowed yourself to linger in a third place? To know and be known by your community? Maybe it's time to reclaim these spaces, one finely brewed cup at a time.?